Dust Separator Review

Dust collection is an extremely important consideration for woodworkers. At best, woodworking dust is a nuisance, at worst, fine dust can be deadly if it builds up in your lungs. The right way to remove dust from your shop is to vacuum it, not to sweep it . A Shop Vac is a great tool for removing dust, but it has significant problems.

When vacuuming up wood dust in the shop, a ShopVac is a great tool. The downside is that it’s filter gets clogged up pretty quickly and can reduce performance very fast. The most common way to make your ShopVac more productive is to add a cyclone separator to it. The cyclone acts as a pre-filter, essentially using gravity to cause most dust to settle into a collection bucket BEFORE it reaches the filter in your shop vac.

Cyclone separators are readily available these days and there are many to choose from. When considering one, you may be wondering which one to choose.

In the video below, Marc Spagnolo of The Wood Whisperer reviews 3 of the most popular cyclone separators to show how they work and which one is most effective.